Jam with Korg Minilogue, Roland JU-06, MicroBrute, Korg Volca, Ableton Live, Push 2 - Detour #7

Published on Sep 15, 2016 Sonic Detours

"I got lucky the other day and bypassed the waiting list for a Korg Minilogue at my local music shop. I have been wanting one of these since they came out and I was not disappointed... this is a fantastic synth!

Here's my first performance with my new silver beast. Be sure to listen with head phones or external speakers... the bass is pretty deep and I can't hear it on my MacBook internal speakers at all.

As usual, everything was sequenced and mixed in Ableton Live, using plenty of compressors, reverbs and delays. Apart from the drums, all parts were made with the hardware synths you see in the video and the stereo master was recorded in real time on my iPhone 6, along with the video. No multi tracking of post processing - everything was played "live".

Gear used:

- Korg Minilogue
- Roland Boutique JU-06
- Korg Volca Bass
- Art Tube Preamp
- Korg Volca Keys
- Arturia MicroBrute
- Ableton Live
- Push 2
- Novation LaunchControl

The main chord progression in this performance is the first 4 bars of the "Liquid Pad" preset on the Minilogue. I came across this pattern while flicking through the presents and I just had to do something with it.

The bass is delivered by the MicroBrute... just a simple square/sine wave patch with pulse width modulation and the filter cutoff way down.

I'm playing the JU-06 live on the Minilogue keyboard (local MIDI control is off). I really enjoy playing a real keyboard after being stuck with the Push 2 pads for a while... man I hate being locked into a key and scale when I play! I've been a bit worried about the size of the keys on the Minilogue, but they worked out great - no problem at all.

The Volca Keys plays the high pitched lead that is introduced in the first breakdown, and the Volca Bass is responsible for the 303 style pattern in the last part of the performance. I use a small Art Tube Preamp on the Volca Bass to create some warm, fuzzy distortion (not in the shot).

I use two drum racks in Ableton Live for the drums - one with TR 808 samples and one based on the lesser known but super cool Boss D55 drum machine (I just love that rim shot). I'm not using the Volca Beats for this performance at all.

The hardware synths were sequenced in Ableton Live and the patterns arranged in scenes, allowing me to "perform" the arrangement in real time. I mapped the buttons on the LaunchControl to mutes on individual drum voices, so they could easily be switched in and out during the performance."

All parts here.